From
the Ottawa Journal Monday June 2, 1969.Reproduced from
microfilm,the Ottawa Public Library.

From
the Ottawa Journal Tuesday, June 3, 1969.Reproduced from
microfilm,the Ottawa Public Library.

Though the Beatles never performed a live concert here in
Ottawa, the city does have a unique connection to the Beatles. John and
Yoko's decision to visit and use Canada in 1969 as a venue for delivering
their campaign on world peace was generally embraced by our youth of its
day. What made it more interesting for us all locally, was that Ottawa,
Canada's Capital, was unexpectedly included into the Lennon's itinerary.
How it all happened is a very intriguing story to tell.

As a 14-year-old back then, I recall how my own interest
was titillated by the Canadian media's own fascination over the arrival of
John and Yoko into Canada: it was reported they landed in Toronto from the
Bahamas on Sunday, May 25, 1969, where they stayed over-night at the King
Edward Hotel. It was on this date, John Lennon tapes a pre-bed-in
recording of "Give Peace A Chance" (on the hit parade, just the day
before, a Beatles' song "Get Back" officially hits #1 on the US charts).
The following day the press interviews John and Yoko in the King Edward
Hotel but the media soon caught wind that John and Yoko were moving their
"peace campaign" on to Montreal, Québec. The couple boarded a plane on the
evening of Monday, May 26, 1969 and flew to Montreal, a city known for its
beautiful and eloquent cosmopolitan look, the Lennons decidedly checked
into room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The move proved to be
strategically successful for the Lennons as the Queen Elizabeth Hotel
became the "central focusing point" for their "peace campaign." With an
open invitation to all media platforms from John and Yoko (based on an
idea from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), the couple conducted
interviews with the press and even brought on board some famous
celebraties such as Dick Gregory, Tommy Smothers (his brother "Dick" was
never at the "bed-in") and right-wing cartoonist Al Capp for a dialogue on
peace. John and Yoko's activities during this time worked exceedingly well
as news reports quickly travelled out from Montreal to all of North
America. Back in Ottawa the students alumni at the University of Ottawa
picked up on the activities of John and Yoko through the media.

Ottawa, in 1969, as local residents would more than
likely tell you, was a most unassuming Capital back then with its usual
9-5 public servants -- a least unlikely place for John and Yoko to show
up. Recalling my memories from that time period, I truly believed that the
Lennons' "peace campaign" would have been maintained between the two
bigger city centers, Toronto and Montreal. Those two large cities with
their large media Meccas were, in my opinion, ripe for the Lennons in
order get their "peace message" out. That in-of-itself should have been a
good enough reason for John and Yoko not to have shown up in Ottawa. To
have suggested to anyone locally in 1969 of procuring John and Yoko in
order to have them show up in Ottawa, would have been a-bit-of-a-stretch.
But the Lennons did turn up and we were all surprised including the local
media.

A recent C.B.C. television special aired in December,
2000, "John & Yoko's Year of Peace" detailed how that came into being.
According to the program, there were actually two main people who inspired
the Lennons to come to Ottawa. The first to inspire the idea was a young
14-year-old student named Jerry Levitan (today, a lawyer by practice, who has written his own account of these events) who
snuck into the King Edward Sheraton hotel at 7:00 a.m. in Toronto where
the Lennons were first staying at the time. Jerry Levitan eventually found
the couple's hotel room and managed to actually get in and talk to them in
person. Not only was he able to talk to them, but he used his brothers
Super-8 movie camera and filmed the Lennons (some of that colour video
footage was aired during that C.B.C. television broadcast.) During this
discussion he mentioned to John and Yoko how cool Canada's Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau was and emphasized how the two of them should make it a
point of meeting him in person. John replied to Jerry that "If you young
people think Mr. Trudeau is cool then maybe we should meet him." The
second individual who became the catalyst in bringing John and Yoko to
Ottawa was then 21-year-old University of Ottawa Student President, Allan
Rock (today he serves as Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations.
When this report was first published, as a Liberal politician he held the position as
Canada's Federal Health Minister.) Mr. Rock came up with a unique angle in how
to get the two ambassador's of peace to come from Montreal and visit Ottawa: why
not tell John and Yoko that the students association at the campus planned on
having a Seminar On World Peace at the University that included not only
the students and the media, but also the Prime Minister of Canada? To achieve
this, Allan decided to visit the Lennons in Montreal and put forward his
proposal (see the press clippings for details.)

Throughout the "bed-in" in Montreal, the city's only rock and
roll station was CFOX (1470 on the radio dial back then) had made arrangements
to have DJ Chuck Chandler interview John and Yoko on a daily basis using a
mobile broadcasting facility in the same room as the Lennons, not far from their
bedside. Towards the end of the Montreal "bed-in" is when Allan Rock would
appear with his proposal, a bold and brave move by the young 21-year-old Student
President. I'm sure CFOX's Chuck Chandler must have been very intrigued by the
idea floating around the hotel room of a possible meeting between Canada's Prime
Minister Trudeau and the Lennons in Ottawa. And, as the C.B.C.'s television
special "John & Yoko's Year of Peace" would reveal, Chuck Chandler tried to
get a definite confirmation from Derek Taylor (Apple Record's "Press Officer")
as to whether John and Yoko would end up actually meeting the Prime Minister.
The film footage showed Derek's answer as being extremely aloof and very vague
with no concrete answer for Chuck Chandler as to whether the meeting with Pierre
Trudeau would occur or not.

And of course, in spite of the uncertainty, John and Yoko did
decide to visit Ottawa on June 3, 1969, but, unfortunately, not with the Prime
Minister in attendance. However, all was not lost for John and Yoko -- they did
hold an interesting Seminar On World Peace with the students and media.
During their visit and at John Lennon's request, Allan Rock drove the Lennons
around in his beetle for a tour of the city. They eventually stopped right at
the front doorsteps of 24 Sussex Drive -- the Prime Minister's residence --
whereupon John wrote and left a message for Pierre Trudeau since he wasn't home.
That letter created the necessary window of opportunity to set up a future
meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau that was held on December 23, 1969 during
their third and final visit to Canada. John and Yoko met Prime Minister Trudeau
for nearly fifty minutes. You can read the actual media coverage here at the
Ottawa Beatles Web Site listed under "Historical Interest." (See the Ottawa
Citizen's "PM -- 'a beautiful person' and for the Ottawa Journal's "Lennons Came
for 5 Minutes; Stayed With PM an Hour" filed within the menu list as: "Lennons
visit Ottawa.")

As mentioned in these opening remarks, Ottawa does have a unique connection
to the Beatles:

George Harrison had an over-night visit to Ottawa on February
28, 1969 and stayed at the Chateau Laurier Hotel. The purpose of George's visit
was to determine whether American folk singer Eric Anderson would be worth
adding to their repertoire of Apple artists or not. After watching Eric's
performance at the Capitol Theatre, George then turned up at the Le Hibou, a
local music club where he saw The Modern Rock Quartet perform.

John Lennon's psychedelic "Phantom V Rolls-Royce" which was
painted by The Fool was showcased here in Ottawa at the Museum of Science and
Technology in 1996. What a thrill it was viewing that car up close! The fine
details of artwork is pretty amazing!!

Paul McCartney finally performed a concert at the Canadian Tire
Centre in Ottawa on July 7, 2013. He stayed at the Chateau Laurier Hotel.

"Beatlemania" as coined on the Canadian Capitol's album
"Beatlemania - With The Beatles" was written by the Ottawa Journal's music
reporter Sandy Gardiner on November 9, 1963. Capitol Records of Canada was so
impressed with his write-up for The Ottawa Journal that they ended up editing
part of his article for that Beatles album cover.

Finally, Ottawa's Yury Polyushonok, author of "Strings for a
Beatle Bass" made an appearance on the ABC Television Special: "The Beatles
Revolution" describing how the Beatles music impacted on Soviet culture during
the times of communistic rule. It was certainly a thrill for us and for Yury to
see him get on television and tell his story from a Russian perspective.

Thus, it seems very appropriate that the Ottawa Beatles Site
should have the honour of presenting these new photos of John and Yoko's visit
to Ottawa. The photographs were taken by
Pascal Barrette who worked for the summer as a student at Studio Champlain Marcil. It was the owner,
Champlain Marcil (who incidentally worked in the late 1940's as the official
photographer for the "Le Droit" in Ottawa) where upon his retirement, he
gifted the studios negatives to the National Archives of Québec. These negatives
included the ones taken by Pascal Barrette when John and Yoko appeared at the
Ottawa University on June 3, 1969. These photographs have never been reproduced in any Beatle book and we
hope by visually displaying them, that these photos will help to complete part
of the historical journey of John and Yoko's peace activities while they visited
Canada during 1969.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The last 18 months have been pretty hectic for Tony and myself
in order to complete the site. When we began creating the Ottawa Beatles Site,
we truly wanted a unique focus on "the history of the band", something
completely different from the "typical fan sites" that you see and explore on
the internet. We realized early on that the best approach was to develop the
usage of local articles, those in particular written by The Ottawa
Citizen and The Ottawa Journal. Their articles displayed on the
Ottawa Beatles Site are from the direct culmination of long hours of research
using microfilm at the local library and slowly going through "frame-by-frame",
some of the daily news as reported back then. While delving into this part of
the research, a sense of "yester-year" or "déjà-vu" rekindles a lost youth,
those innocent times we all once knew. The innocence of the '60s youth have
today taken on the corporate roles which most of whom would easily have
classified themselves back then as "hippies." And what ever happened to the
youthful cliché "never trust anyone over 30!"?? At the seemingly impossible but
now ripe age of 46, how could I (and some others I suspect) back then have
latched on to this and other such a idealisic maxims just to grab the attention
of our elders? It does seem a bit cliché today, doesn't it? Ironically though,
some of the idealisms from the '60s have garnished themselves right into the new
century: John and Yoko's recording of "Give Peace A Chance" is a anthem still
sung all over the world today. Hopefully some of the news articles and the
pictorial essay presented here will reveal part of the reason as to why there
was such a great spirit behind John and Yoko's 1969 peace campaign -- which in
my opinion, is still alive and doing quite well.

Therefore, it goes without saying that we are indebted to the
following people and their organizions who helped in contributing their
resources in making this pictoral essay possible:

Ottawa
Citizen: Special thank you to all of the management and staff
reporters at The Ottawa Citizen for allowing us to e-publish their articles. I
would like to also extend a very special thank you to Ms. Pat Hyndman, who,
graciously over the 18-month period, handled all of our requests in obtaining
clearances not only for this news article but also for all the previous ones as
well. Thank you Pat for your cooperation. We truly appreciated it!

The Ottawa Journal: Special thank you's to all of
the Journal staff. Though the paper is no longer in publication, it is hoped
that those contributing reporters who see their articles archived and displayed,
will once again get a sense of thrill and satisfaction for a job well done
(which they did!)

The National
Archives of Québec: Special thank you to the management team at the
National Archives of Québec for preparing the photos along with the necessary
legal documentation in granting the Ottawa Beatles Site an "indeterminate
status" to e-publish photos of John and Yoko's visit to Ottawa. Thank you so
much!

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING "LEGAL NOTICE" CONCERNING THE PHOTOS AND THE
RESEARCH USED FOR THIS PRESENTATION:

1) The photos used in this pictorial essay cannot be displayed freely on the
Internet (or Intranet) without first obtaining permission from the National
Archives of Québec; 2) Any web site owner who displays these photos
knowingly without first obtaining permission from the National Archives of
Québec will be subject to legal prosecution to the furthest extent of law by the
National Archives of Québec; 3) And, furthermore, no part of the publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise), without first prior written permission of the exclusive
copyright owner(s) and the publisher of this site.

AND IN THE NEWS...

GIMMICK -- YESU of O gets a peace of the Lennon
actionPublished by the Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday, June 4, 1969

By Judy BarrieCitizen staff writer

Beatle John Lennon somehow got it into his head that he could step down
overnight from the pedestal of frenzied adoration to ardent peacenik.

He's half succeeding.

He rushed through Ottawa Tuesday with his wife Yoko Ono and five-year-old
daughter Kyoko, disappointed about 300 students who heard him mutter a couple of
words then disappear, but highlighted a lively panel discussion on world peace.

John and Yoko, who know all about mass communication and slick, solicitous
advertising maintain that crass gimmicks are the only way to preach peace.

"Instead of conditioning people to buy Coke, instead of making people feel
dirty if they don't buy soap, we make people feel dirty if they don't think
about peace or love everyday," said Yoko.

She said a man came to their bedside in Montreal and offered a peace pamphlet
for their perusal. It bore some philosophical preachings on the front and
"stuffy words inside."

"We just didn't read it," said Yoko, who far outspoke her husband. "Ordinary
people won't look at that kind of thing."

"You've got to make people aware that there is an alternative, that war and
violence aren't inevitable," said John.

When panelists Allan Rock, student union president who visited Lennon in
Montreal to arrange the visit and Martin Loney, president of Canadian Union of
Students began pressing for concrete details and a definition of peace, volatile
panelist Bruno Gerussi let go.

Academic clichés "really don't mean a hell of a lot," he said, the anger
rising in his voice. "Philosophy isn't what you think, it's what you do."

Lennon told his listeners they could start right in the room, and admonished
photographers for snapping shots of his daughter and "scaring the kid" although
the little girl looked very self-assured as she held her fingers in 'V' form and
repeated "Peace, peace."

Lennon was scheduled to arrive in Ottawa at 4 p.m. when he would greet
students in front of the university's administration building. Half an hour
later they were told he'd arrive at 6:30 p.m.

But at that point Lennon must have been nearing the outskirts of Ottawa and
the chosen few (mostly newsmen and photographers) were let in on the secret, and
directed to the arts building.

$2,000 holdup

Apparently the Beatle had trouble getting out of Montreal when the limousine
service demanded some $2,000 in case of damage to its car by fans. They got
underway an hour later, but John, plagued by a stomach ailment had to stop for
tea along the way and the party wired ahead that garlic pills be bought for him.

Dressed in white the three were hustled into a room off the arts building
lobby, about 5:30 p.m.

Meantime, 150 spectators trying to look blasé, (after all, Lennon is nothing
more than our brother now -- he's working for peace) but really, tense with the
excitement of seeing a real live Beatle, tried to rush the door.

It turned out the party just wanted a little time to go to the bathroom,
while university football players stood guard. But it was ironic that Allan Rock
had to yell, "let's not use violence" just before a peace conference.

Towards the end when it was established that all the panellists, which
included Prof. Colin Wells, vice-dean of the university of arts faculty and a
student, Alexis Blanchette, agreed on peace by practice, John Lennon spoke for
the first time about the other Beatles.

"They're with me, only on their own individual scene," said John.

"We never were the fab four that everybody thought. George works just as hard
as I do to communicate the same message, but in a different way.

"We were part of a movement, we influenced and we followed, but didn't
propagate anything," said John.

Lennon made a last-minute attempt to see Prime Minister Trudeau Tuesday
night, when he paid an unexpected visit to 24 Sussex Drive. But he was told by a
maid Mr. Trudeau was out. He left a flower and a note for the prime minister,
and departed after having his picture taken with the Mountie on duty.

Copyright by The Ottawa Citizen, published on June 4, 1969.

BEATLE CRUSADES,FANS WAIT IN THE RAINPublished in The
Ottawa Journal, Wednesday, June 4, 1969By David Yates

Dressed in all-white suits, Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko
Ono brought their crusade for peace to Ottawa Tuesday and urged their followers
to sell it like merchandise -- by using advertising.

"You must plug peace and make it known as an alternative to war," Mr. Lennon
told a select group of 50 students and reporters at a University of Ottawa
seminar sponsored by the students union.

The Lennons and daughter Kyoko arrived in Ottawa late in the afternoon after
a drive from Montreal where the couple had just finished a week-long bed-in
campaigning for peace from a hotel suite.

They were due to appear on the lawn of the university's administration
building at 4 p.m., but that was put back to 4:30 and just before then an
announcement was made to several hundred waiting youngsters that the Lennons
would not be making the scene until 6:30 p.m. because of "a mechanical
breakdown."

But the Lennons feinted them right out of their shoes and arrived at the arts
building at 5 p.m.

They went straight into discussion on a panel which included actor-CBC
personality Bruno Gerussi, Colin Wells, chairman of the university's classics
department, Martin Loney, president of the Canadian Union of Students, and Al
Rock, president of the university's student union.

Youngsters were left standing in the rain until the Lennons made a brief
appearance at 7 p.m. outside the administration building.

The couple have been trying to avoid the younger crowds during their stay in
Canada to speak to the news media and reach as many people as possible, it has
been explained.

During the panel discussion and press conference which followed John and Yoko
lashed radicals who love peace and refuse to try to convince the "squares."

"They (the radicals) are just snobs," said John and Yoko at different times.

"Use the system and don't be snobs about peace," John declared.

As examples, he said he and American comedian and civil rights activist Dick
Gregory have been able to infiltrate the system, make money and spread their
messages.

"They (people who run the system) are more greedy than they are prejudiced,"
he said.

In other comments John declared "cops are human" and "all prime ministers
compromise their principles to get where they are -- even the best."

John had hoped to meet Prime Minister Trudeau during his stay in Canada, but
the prime minister's office said he was too busy to meet the Beatle.

The Globe And Mail, "You Can Say I'm A Dreamer" by Allan Rock, Section
R4 of the newspaper, Friday December 8, 2000.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,The Passionate Eye's
special television broadcast: "John & Yoko's Year of Peace", December, 2000.

John Lennon, by Ray Coleman, Futura Books, published 1985.

The Beatles - The Ultimate Recording Guide, by Allen J. Wiener,
published by Bob Adams Incorporated, published 1994.

The Complete Beatles Chronicles, by Mark Lewisohn, published by
Hamlyn, paperback edition, 2000.

The World Beatles
Forum, "Beatles In Canada" by Mark Peters with contributions from
editor Brad Howard, published in their January/February 2000 edition.

BEATLE FANS: Click on the link for subscription information regarding
The World Beatles
Forum , an excellent Beatle publication direct from Ottawa! Brad
Howard, along with his skillful team of researchers have conducted some of the
most fascinating interviews regarding the Beatles. The World Beatles
Forum has interviewed: Mark Lewisohn (a 10,000-word interview exclusive);
Hamish Stuart (7,000-word interview); Bruce Spizer (17,000 words); Harhald
Gernhardt (10,000-word interview); The World Beatles Forum has also
interviewed Bill Harry, editor of Mersey Beat as well as Nick Lowe. Plans are
currently in the works for a future interview with Sid Bernstein.

P.S. Kudos to Brad Howard for furnishing me with the details about George
Harrison's visit to Ottawa from his publication. Thanks Brad! - j.w.